How did The doctor not realize?

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Not a flaw and it's been discussed in countless of topics around here. Like is said in the movie "ghosts only see what they want to see". They don't want to see they're dead, so they pretend there's a different reason people won't talk to them or, like the lady in Cole's kitchen, pretend that someone they CAN communicate with (like Cole) is a person they knew from their own lives. How else would you explain people from centuries ago not noticing they're walking around in a different era? Time evidently doesn't pass the same way as it does for the living. Being dead is like having a dream, where things make sense even though they don't.

scottishnpaddy wrote: It's a gaping flaw and one which makes the twist fairly cheap.

The only thing cheap here is your lame opinion. Evidently you just didn't listen. "They only see what they want to see." means that the dead DO NOT see reality the way the rest of us do. This was revealed at the very end and when finally see that the reason Dr. Crowe cannot get into the basement is that a table had been placed in front of it. At least 2 to 3 times previously he had attempted and there was no table there, or at least not one that he saw.

Not a gaping flaw; not a cheap twist. And let's remember something else - it's JUST A MOVIE, not a dissertation on how the dead would move about among us.

"It's a gaping flaw and one which makes the twist fairly cheap."

Definitely.

Take the scene near the 20-25 minute mark, where the boy comes home to his mom waiting with Bruce's character sitting right next/opposite to her on a chair. It's as if they have been having a chat, and are both just waiting for the boy to arrive.

So Willis just sits with the boy's mom, on the opposite chair, without saying a word to her, and with her completely ignoring him, without it raising any reaction in him. And for how long? Minutes? Half an hour? More?

How did he get in the house, did he ring the doorbell, and have a chat with the mom, who then let him in?

Or did he just walk through the walls (and not notice anything peculiar about that new ability of his), or just SNEAK inside, when the door just happened to be open, (which wouldn't be very 'professional', and how would he proceed from being an uninvited intruder and possible threat to just calmly sitting together with the mom - I mean, if he was on the physical side. I mean, from his psychology, how would he explain such an intrusion?)..

..and then just sat on the chair without exchanging even A WORD with the boy's mom?

Come on. That scene alone -screams- "IMPLAUSIBILITY", louder than pretty much anything in any even relatively good movie I have ever seen.

With the explanations we are given, the cheap and thoughtless twist really brings way too many plot holes and renders most of this movie completely useless anyway. I mean, what's the point of almost any of what happens, because the plot is not really about what happens anyway?

Fight Club delivered a similar twist much better. Not only is it plausible, believable and doesn't require that much suspension of disbelief (just some acceptance of artistic liberty), but it also doesn't make the rest of the movie meaningless, but on the contary; a lot more meaningful and interesting.

This movie is just boring droning on that the cheap twist just can't save. Why would anyone care about a plot like this; twist or no twist?

This is one of those movies that seem to have been made for the benefit of the twist, rather than the other way around. The twist should serve the plot, not the plot serve the twist.

If you take away the twist from this movie, what is left? Nothing much.

Take away the twist in "Fight Club", and you still get a good message about corporations and individuality (which the message itself obliterates, though, by lying about people not being unique), an exciting flick with entertaining events and some interesting perspectives, points and narration. And although I don't care for him all that much usually, Pitt does deliver a charismatic presence and a heckuva great acting performance in that movie. It's also relatively unique and does provoke the viewer to think.

This movie is just boring, insignificant and lazy - without the twist, there would be just dull emptiness. With the twist, there's a couple of almost-interesting revelations and lots of boredom. A mediocre experience at best.

Besides, how could ANYONE not realize they are dead - if they retain full consciousness after the transformation? (Some people deny 'life after death' so much during the physical phase that they actually sink into a sort of coma, only to be awakened by the next incarnation - but they will wake up some day)

I mean, DEATH. It's not just a "oh, something probably happened. Let's just continue life as usual" event, and even when it is a bit, it's so completely different AND it would not happen on the physical level, AND you couldn't use your astral eyes to see into the physical side that easily, without training, AND .. well, we will all see how it works, when it happens to us.

But the point is, astral world and the physical world are as different as the world we exist in when we are sleeping and dreaming, and the world we exist in when we are in the usual state of consciousness. Sure, there are 'lucid dreams', and dreams, that you think are real (I think a couple of nights ago, I actually laughed at the preposterous presentation, when some people tried to convince me something ludicrous was actually happening - I just denied it, because it was just so silly), but there's no way you would not even suspect that something is amiss if the dream was prolonged for extended periods of time.

So many things are (and work) so differently - the body no longer has this heavy weight that the physical body has, and you have to use thought power to move it around, instead of physical muscles, and you can pretty much "fly", the body actually creates illumination (the Yoda of the old movies was right) around it, and you experience everything more vividly - even simple bushes are so alive to you, that you just can't be indifferent to any of them.

It's preposterous that even the thickest ghetto-thug's retarded, inbred brat daughter wouldn't realize the huge, enormous and multi-level difference between "the physical plane" and "the astral plane" existence, life and moving about.

In this movie, he's moving and acting like he doesn't even see any kind of difference having happened. This is just not possible. A lot of things would make you immediately very suspicious about things, even if you didn't at first realize WHAT had happened to you. You would still know that -something- is completely different, you couldn't just continue your old life.

So what does he eat and drink? How can he use physical objects, like pens and things, without anyone noticing? Or did the pens and notepads die too? When he is learning the lating and writing words on paper, does he use the actual physical objects that are there, or some kind of astral-versions of them? And in that case, who provides the astral pens, and why?

This movie is so full of implausibilities and plot holes that it's not even funny. And I haven't even reached the 26 minute mark yet!

Bottom line; THERE IS _NO_WAY_ THAT SOMEONE WOULD REMAIN COMPLETELY IGNORANT OF THEIR BODY HAVING DIED AND NO LONGER INHABITING IT. I mean, if he can see to the physical level without problems, why didn't he see his own body? Why doesn't he levitate? Why didn't he see the paramedics or whatnot? Why didn't he see the revival attempts, or his body's funeral (surely he was drawn to his body's funeral)? How come he remained completely clueless? What was he doing for all those months, where was he, what was he looking at, who was he interacting with, and why wouldn't any helping spirits actually communicate with him DURING ALL THAT TIME?

It's just not plausible, no matter how you look at it.

I don't mind Time-Traveling DeLoreans or odd time-twists that create two alternate timelines, one of which is so horrible that we only follow the happier one (the article in some magazine was pretty good, in how they explained about the other Marty and his awful destiny), I don't mind Cybernetic Organisms coming from the future to terminate someone's mother, if everything is well enough explained, and if the atmosphere, musics, action and the vision of the movie are all good and in place.

But I do mind twists that obliterate the plausibility - just for the sake of the twist.

I dare claim that it's more impossible for a child psychologist to plausibly enter that house, and silently wait for the boy, without exchanging a word with the mom, and not think there's something weird going on (or trying to say things to the mom, and her not even seeming to see him and realize he's there - just watch the scene in Fawlty Towers, where Basil Fawlty very quickly deduced that he's invisible, because no one was responding to him, and decided to go hit some guests - surely a trained psychologist would have made such a deduction much quicker!).

When someone ignores me, I do realize there's 'something going on', you know. But a child shrink doesn't think there's anything suspicious about EVERY SINGLE INDIVIDUAL he comes to contact with, ignoring him for months in a row, without fail.

I know shrinks are a thick bunch, but this is ridiculous.

If he's living in a dream-like state and has no sense of time, maybe he didn't show up until Cole was already on the bus and he imagined he had bought a ticket. Or maybe Malcolm imagined giving money to the bus driver and getting a ticket? He imagines a lot of things. He also didn't see the desk in front of the door to the basement. But Cole knew Malcolm was dead and didn't want to upset him, so maybe he told him that he would pay for the tickets or maybe he asked for money so he could buy tickets for them both. Or perhaps Malcolm had a commuter pass.

Cole was pretty independent though, so he probably just bought the tickets himself. It's not unusual for a boy of his age to travel on the bus.

And it's heavily implied that Cole knew Malcolm was dead all along, so he probably bought both bus tickets, and since Malcolm only sees what he wants to see, Malcolm didn't find anything strange about this.